The Leander Way: Extra Stories

Grade 5 Student Schedules
Debbie K and her students explain how they have progressed from a structure of rotating activity stations to student-managed schedules. Justin and Katie describe how they plan and monitor their learning activities including:
* How students manage their own schedule, deciding the order in which to tackle learning activities and how long to spend on each
* Students working at their own pace
* The teacher meeting with every student each week
Grade 5 Class PDSA Storyboard
Casey, Brooke, Davis and Amber share their Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) improvement storyboard. They describe their use of the quality improvement tools to improve learning in their classroom, including: Imagineering, Brainstorming, Forcefield Analysis, Nominal Group Technique and Inter-relationship Digraph.
District-Wide Elementary Science Improvement
Bret C and Linda L describe how the district set about improving learning in elementary science. Over several years, the teaching and learning of science progressed from only 55% of elementary students achieving a level of 'proficiency' to an astonishing 93% achieving this standard and 55% being 'commended'.
Discussions include:
* The role of the Board of Trustees
* Developing a comprehensive five-year plan
* Engaging a wide range of stakeholders
* Developing an inquiry-based approach
* Provision of learning resources, including live 'critters'
* Using improvement tools and story-board
* Seeing and measuring the benefits
Parkside Elementary Scholars Storyboard
Being a new school, the leadership team at Parkside Elementary wanted to create a shared vision for the school. In this story, Sharon H, Kim C, Lori, T and Rachel P walk through the storyboard of the project that created the Parkside Scholar: a shared understanding of the desired traits of a graduate from Parkside Elementary school. Of particular note:
* Use of a storyboard to record and share the team's progress
* A high degree of collaboration and consultation with key stakeholders through the process
* Routine use of the quality improvement tools
* Disciplined implementation of the action plans
* The process took over a year to complete
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